


No time for ghosts to be ghosts

by Amazaria



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Ace, Canon Compliant, Eventual Happy Ending, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I will NOT explain further, Noble Sabo, Note how the only character tagged are Sabo and Ace, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Raised by Whitebeard Ace, Shanks' Pirate Apprentice Luffy, for my definition of happy, no i swear it'll make sense, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28840986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amazaria/pseuds/Amazaria
Summary: Here's how it goes: Sabo dies, and then he does, and Luffy doesn't. End of the story, no do-over or rewrites, Ace isn't foolish enough to expect any.This is how the story went. Except maybe the story's completely different, elsewhere.Now whether it's better-Well, that's still left to be seen, isn't it?(or: in which Ace wakes up after Marineford, to a different world, but family will find its way back to each other no matter what, after all.)
Relationships: Portgas D. Ace & Sabo
Comments: 5
Kudos: 44
Collections: Sake Ceremony 2021





	1. And even though I'm finished/I'm not quite done with it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SoccerSarah01](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoccerSarah01/gifts).



Ace wakes up to the feeling of cold, which is highly unusual for him.

Not a persistent cold. Not one that pierces to the bone, like Impel Down's; not one that hurts and aches and will not let itself be forgotten.

A gentle cold, a barely noticeable chill; like a slightly colder rush of air.

But Ace is fire, and cold has long since been lost to him, except perhaps when shackled, or drowning. So what is this?

He opens his eyes to find himself sitting at the edge of a cliff, feet hanging in the void, staring down endlessly rolling waves. The moment is too quiet; like all that has ever been alive has deserted this place, like it has not welcomed life for centuries or maybe longer.  
  
Only the wind, and the water, and him, on the edge of falling.

Ace blinks. And blinks. And blinks, and blinks, in time with the rhythmical crashes of the sea against everlasting rocks, down. His feet are still hanging in the air. He should be worried about falling down, he thinks distantly.

He isn't.

The waves further down are relentless. He stares, at the dance of foam on their edges, at the infinite movement. The wave returns to the ocean; and again, and again, and again.

It takes him a minute, or an hour, or a day, to lift his gaze from the water; to move his hands from where they were resting on the grass, to pull up his feet, and scoot back, and stand.

To inhale, for the first time since he's opened his eyes.

The world explodes with sound. He can hear the roar of the waves, the howls of the wind, the calls of animals from the forest he knows hides behind his back.

Ace inhales. Exhales. Practiced movements.

The biting wind should be messing with his hair. He can barely feel it.

His skin should feel like barely-contained fire. His fingers are cold.

He closes his eyes.

He should be dead.

He-

is?

Ace inhales, exhales, stops.

Does not suffocate.

How would you kill a ghost?

He keeps waiting for the panic to hit him, for the urgency that had characterized him in life to claim him again in death; but the clouds are rolling on the horizon, the waves endlessly crashing on the shores of what he knows to be Dawn Island, and all he feels is numb, is dead.

One step back, two steps back. This is where they buried Sabo.

Isn't it fitting, for him to haunt this, the place where mourning took on its biting edge, death its cruel honesty?

One step back, two steps back.

He keeps waiting for the panic to hit him.

It finally does, when he opens his eyes again, and finds Sabo's grave gone.

oOo

"What the fuck," is the first thing he says. "What the fuck? What the fuck. What the fuck?"

His air is running out; he's never had any air to begin with.

"I died," he says, and hearing his voice speaking out loud feels strange, hearing his voice saying this feels mocking, but he- he died.

He died.

And whether or not he wanted to is out of the question, he tells himself as the instinctive protests hit him. He died. He _died_. He died and Luffy lived and Pops died for him and he died.

"I died," he repeats, feeling more assured, feeling like he's standing over hollow ground, but grief for one's self doesn't weigh that much, he doesn't think. "Where's Sabo's grave? Why am I here? Where's Sabo's grave?"

The empty air does not answer him. The cliff is perfectly empty, undisturbed. Ace remembers standing here and promising Luffy never to die.

Ace remembers standing here and believing his promise.

Ace remembers-

A fitting place to haunt, isn't it?

If there is no grave anymore, there will be a ghost. If there is no hope anymore, there will be waiting.

He stares at the absence of a wooden marker. The grass looks like it has never been disturbed. If he were to sit here he could almost fall asleep, listening to the sound of waves; and wait and wait and fade. It calls him, almost, like this isn't a place for him to be- like this is wrong, like this is a mistake. You died, you died, come back, you're not supposed to be here.

Ah, but Ace has never been good at dying when he was supposed to.

The cliff, for all its peacefulness, is too empty. Ace is too restless.

He picks himself up all at once. Starts breathing again with a panicked inhale, and then goes through the movements, if only for something to do. Stalks off into the forest.

It looms over him, but he knows its dangers, has since he was young. They are predictable; he does not expect them to have changed.

He's right; he's not.

The tigers do not lunge at him, teeth bared and eyes bloodthirsty, as he makes his way through the high trees and meandering streams of water. But he forgets to pay attention for one minute, gets caught up in the feeling of cold in his fingertips, the way it seems to spread if he focuses on it, and hits his head on a low overhanging branch.

The pain feels foreign; feels distant. It's still here. Ace keeps forgetting to breathe, to blink, but he's not about to give it up.

The forest is the same. It's familiar in a thousand different ways. Ace feels some low longing settle in the back of his chest, just hidden behind his heart. Nostalgia, or something crueler than that.

Here, where he and Luffy used to spar; there is where the path Makino took when visiting them used to be. The berry bushes they used to pick from are still here; if he wandered further he bets he could find his way back to Windmill village, relying solely on muscle memory.

It feels like a reminder. _This used to be known; this used to be home._

His tethers feel distant still.

(He died.)

But no matter! He walks on, and on, and on. Everything is the same, except for him, maybe; except for the way when he knocks into trees there is no sound, when he steps into mud there are no footprints. Everything is the same, even him; keep moving, keep running, don't stay still, or it'll catch up to you.

Everything is the same, except when he gets home, there is no treehouse.

"What the fuck," he repeats. His confusion is starting to get redundant.

It could have collapsed, like he guesses Sabo's grave did. He supposes nobody went there anymore, that it got carried away into the ocean by the wind. That nobody cared enough about a ten-year-old boy that died a decade ago to care about his grave, about the only physical thing left of him. And what does it matter? His body wasn't even there.

That's what happens to ghosts, isn't it? Being forgotten.

And Ace was stupid, for engraving Sabo's name on his skin, like that would make him even one bit more alive. Stupid little child, that never quite managed to shake the past away.

Now even his past disappeared on him; proof of his grief destroyed, his once-shelters taken down.

This is what happens to ghosts. Silence, then stillness, then oblivion.

Well, Ace hasn't ever been good at not screaming.

oOo

He goes down to Windmill, for lack of a better thing to do. One, two, breathe, blink, one, two, breathe, blink. Pretending to be alive is so much work.

The path is shorter than he remembers, the silence heavier. He swears that as he gets down the mountain, it gets colder, not warmer. Sometimes, in between the trees, he catches a glimpse of the sea, and aches.

Back at the start, and it's disorienting to find how much he changed. This island used to be bright; it weighs him down now. He was happy, here, once; to come back to it numb is the worst kind of tragedy, he thinks. The worst kind of insult.

But then that's home, isn't it? All of your feelings and experiences in one place, muddled until nothing matters but the present.

Ah, but spirits are creatures of the past.

One step, two steps, don't forget to blink, don't forget to breathe.

Windmill feels forever away. The day stretches; what time was it when he woke up? What time is it now? He raises his head to stare at the sun and it looks muted. He forgets what he was searching for; one step, two steps, don't forget to blink, don't forget to breathe.

What is he doing here?

Solitude feels heavy. Shouldn't weights pass through ghosts?

One step, two steps-

what is he doing here?

There's a knot in his throat. He died. There's a hole in his chest. He died.

What is he doing here?

_What is he doing here?_

The collapse comes as a surprise. The exhaustion crushes him all at once; the grief too. Hollow ground, and it just gave out under him.

One, two, one, two, one, two. The sun goes down.

Ace closes his eyes.

One, two, one, two, one, two. Ace opens them to the night.

The stars aren't visible, from wherever he is. Ace rolls his eyes at the darkness, like it can still mock him when it isn't controlled by Teach.

He misses safety acutely. He misses- the air in his lungs. The warmth of his life.

His family.

One, two, one, two. _You've always missed something, just get up._

He doesn't.

It takes him until the morning to start moving again.

oOo

Windmill Village is quiet in the light of dawn. Makino's door is still closed. Ace considers sitting, considers shouting, considers the rays of the sun against the wood of homes that look so far away, even as he rests his back against their walls.

The sun rises a bit more.

He wanders down to the docks. This is where Luffy must have set sail from; the villagers liked him, because who didn't? Ace set off from the wilderness, the bandits urging him away and Luffy grinning like a sun yet to rise behind him. It was fitting, he thinks.

The water laps on the beach, crashes and melts against smoothed-over rocks, full of shadows in the early hours of the morning. Ace puts his hand in, for the fun of it, and it burns colder than anything he's ever felt before.

" _Fuck_ ," he hisses between his teeth, and takes his hand back hurriedly, shaking it all the while. The cold recedes, leaving just the slight chill he's become accustomed to. He takes one step back from the sea, two, bites his lips against the sudden onslaught of grief.

One, two, blink, breathe. It'll be okay, that's what he used to promise to Luffy; he can tell himself the same lie.

The sun rises, and rises, and rises. He can hear the village come alive from behind him; come alive, ha.

He doesn't turn his gaze away from the sea; it's comforting in its regularity, in its indifference, in the way he can still touch it and feel something.

And, well, once Ace asked those people if he should have been born, and they said no.

Home. All of your feelings and experiences, and no matter how muddled you can still see the scars it left.

Crash, return home, crash, return home; and once again, and once again. The waves don't care for him.

He stays there. Where else? What does a ghost do? He wonders, if he tried to touch someone, if his hand would just pass through. If when Luffy comes back, victorious, he'll try to call his little brother's name and find him looking elsewhere.

Oh, but this hurts. His arms come to warp around himself instinctively, and he would be a sight to behold, if he could be seen.

Eventually the sun warms the stone he sits on. It's nice, and he lays down fully, closes his eyes, listens to the sound of waves.

 _My only regret_ , he'd said to Luffy, blood on his teeth his lungs his chest his heart, _is that I won't get to see you accomplish your dream._

But- he guesses he could, now, couldn't he?

Regrets. Isn't that what holds ghosts back?

A life without regrets, and Ace guesses promises must mean something to someone, if they won't let him die while his is still broken.

Makino's door is open, now. He slips in behind a customer, and stands amid laughter and friendly conversation, feeling impossibly detached.

Luffy's wanted poster stares back at him, grinning and beaming and all that still matters in this world, and Ace breathes, breathes, breathes, and lets it feel natural.

One, two, one, two, live.

oOo

  
He almost climbs back to Dadan's house, to stare at the bandits, and changes his mind halfway.

It must be decade-old muscle memory that steers him towards Grey Terminal, towards this mess of lives where he used to hide and scavenge and dream of brighter, kinder things. He ducks under leaves and stumbles on branches and sticks, pacing paths that used to be worn down and now look like nobody has ever used them. All of the tree trunks across rivers have been carried away, and if the little markings in tree bark are still here, he can't find them.

Walk, and walk, and walk. You'll reach it eventually.

He emerges from the trees shadows' at midday, sun high in the sky but hidden behind clouds, wind harsh. His wariness wears him down, and he steps outside of the leaves' cover reluctantly. 

Grey Terminal was never safe, was never good, it was just the only thing he had. But it carries memories still, and Ace guess that's all that makes him up, now.

He steps out, and the changes hit him all at once, but awareness comes to him in stages.

One: the trees are stained black, now.

Two: the walls are covered in soot.

Three: the air smells faintly of smoke.

Four: Grey Terminal is gone.

He stares and stares and stares, but the expanse of land where it used to pile is empty, save for burned down remains of things he can't recognize despite his best efforts. No movement, no people; the ashes are muddling the ground, it must have rained since the fire.

In a second Ace remembers, devastatingly distinctly, why he used to dislike fire. Why even when it became a part of him, he looked at it with healthy distrust.

This used to be something. This used to be something.

This used to be-

He and Sabo met here. He and Sabo were seperated here.

This used to-

And it's gone.

A part of him wants to cry. Some small, young, tired part of it whispers that it's _unfair_ , that he died, that it's too much- a part of him wants to sit down again and forget why he ever got up again, last night.

The rest of him wants to burn something.

The rest of him wants to make someone pay; he's been told hundreds of times that revenge isn't worth it, it got him killed even, and still the call of it burns in his veins.

This is unfair. This was stolen, this was mine, give it back give it back give it _back_.

Tears make their way to his eyes, and he blinks and blinks and blinks them away. Crying has never gotten anyone anything, not in Goa.

Ace bites his teeth and clenches his fists and stands alone in the ruined field. Give it back, or pay for its loss.

One inhale is enough to set light to the blaze in his chest, and he strides towards the city's gates, towards the nobles' city, up and up and higher than he's allowed to be.

Well, you know what they say about pirates and rules.

oOo

Sneaking around is much easier, now that he's- well, dead.

He bypasses guards that used to terrify him, uses stairs instead of scaling walls and jumping onto sliding roofs. The people don't look at him wrong, don't look at him at all; he recognizes landscapes distantly, through a veil.

He feels lost, he feels empty, and then he feels ablaze.

(They burnt it.

They _killed_ Sabo.)

He walks on, and on, and on, until the streets around him are clean, vibrant even; until they're less and less crowded, less and less truthful, until the windows are lined with gold and the fountains filled with clear water. Until clothes are brand new, and teeth all white, and Ace hates being here more than he hates being.

This is what should've burned. But this all stone, this is meant to last, this is meant to reign. Leftovers, in the meantime, are easy to scrap into the bin, and left to rot.

He's always known this. He's always been this. He's always- and what is he even trying to do? Last time he fought he failed. Why would it be different now?

He looks at high walls, looks at the city he hadn't even dared to enter as a child, even with a brother locked in there, and feels small, feels stupid, feels helpless.

What now? What now?

He can't do anything. It sinks in slowly. What now? Wait, and wait, and wait, that's why. Loneliness never bothered him like it bothered Luffy, but he's got time to learn, he supposes.

He stands in the middle of the empty road, unbreathing, feeling like he reached out towards something and it escaped him just so. What now? Death.

His anger burns out, and it punches a hole in his chest. It never used to run out when he was alive, and now all that it does is fail him. Don't close your eyes, don't close your eyes, it'll be fine.

"What're you doing here," asks someone behind him, voice tired but still clearly marked with the characteristic disdain of the nobles. "Hey. Move. You don't belong here."

"Fuck off, asshole," answers Ace mechanically. There's a silence.

"I'm sorry," says the voice. "What?"

And-

Wait.

 _Wait_.

"Wait," he says out loud, moving to turn around. "Wait, you can see m-"

His question dies in his throat as he stares ahead, strangled by surprise. Ace blinks, though he doesn't need to, but then again, he would argue that he very much needs to right now.

 _Sabo_ blinks back.

"That's a weird fucking question," he says.


	2. I can't believe that I'm leaving/(I don't think I want to leave you/I don't think I want to leave you here alone)

Sabo stares at him, looking confused and annoyed and bone-tired. Ace wrestles his confusion down enough to let out a strangled, "Sabo?"

Maybe he's wrong, maybe this is just an odd look-alike, maybe it's just a sibling Sabo didn't know about- Dogra saw him sail, Dogra saw him drown, Dogra saw him die. It can't be Sabo. The man is too pristine, too well-put-together; his boots look like they've never stepped in mud, his face like he's never seen Ace. It can't be his brother.

"Yes, that's me," answers apparently-Sabo, raising an eyebrow. "How do you know my name? Nevermind, you should be gone already."

And oh, would you look at that. His anger is back, and with a revenge.

"What the _hell_ ," hisses Ace, and stalks closer. "I thought you were _dead_ \- you said you were going to escape! You said- and Dogra saw you! You were okay that whole time, and you just- left us? Stayed here like a _coward_?"

"Who are you," asks Sabo, no recognition in his gaze. Ace freezes a moment, before shaking himself out of his horror with already-practiced ease.

"I don't know you," continues Sabo. "We've never spoken- and what are you doing here, again? You definitely don't live in Goa," he snorts, looking Ace up and down with contempt evident in his gaze.

"I'm your brother," says Ace. Doesn't let himself linger on the fact that it sounds more like a plea.

"I don't have brothers," retorts Sabo.

Ace punches him in the face.

It's one thing to pretend to not recognize him, to leave him behind and cast him away and live life as if they had never met. It's another to do that to Luffy.

Sabo spits out blood. "What the _hell_?" He exclaims, nose bloody. The street around them is too quiet, and Sabo's voice rings out loud and shocked in the silence. Ace glances around, out of some ages-old instinct, but nothing moves around them.

"You don't get to do that," he hisses, refocusing on Sabo.

"What the _fuck_ ," says Sabo, blood running down his nose, tilting his head backward, probably to avoid getting any on his ridiculously fancy clothes. "I don't _know_ _you_!"

"You- stop lying!"

Sabo scoffs. "Stop ly- I'm not in the wrong, here! Stop punching people you don't know first!"

"I know you!"

"Good for you! I don't!"

"You bastard-"

Sabo still has his head tilted backward, and it would be extremely easy to clock him in the jaw. Ace hesitates; now that the initial shock and anger has passed, he's left confused and hurt, and apparently Sabo isn't a safe person to be around anymore.

He turns his back to Sabo and starts to walk away.

"Oh, wait a fucking minute," says Sabo, furious, going to grab his wrist. "No, asshole, that's not how it works," and then his skin touches Ace's and he hisses in pain.

"How are you so cold?" He asks, and Ace doesn't answer, focusing on the way the fingers around his wrist feel a bit like getting his fruit and his life back, all at once. "Is that a tattoo? Wait- I do know you, you're that one Whitebeard pirate- what's a Whitebeard pirate doing in _East Blue_?"

Ace blinks, rips his arm out of Sabo's grasp absently. "I guess ghosts haunt their home islands," he answers. Sabo raises his eyebrows at him; it looks funny, with the streak of blood across his face from when he wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

Pristine clothes, bloodstained fingers; nobles.

"Ghosts," says Sabo, deadpan. "Ghosts, that's what you're going with? I got punched in the face because you're a ghost?"

"Because you're an asshole," corrects Ace. Insulting Sabo is familiar in a way that aches. He feels on the edge of some sort of void.

"I've never even met you!"

Ace just stares at him. He used to know when Sabo was lying, he used to be able to read the tenseness of his shoulders and the way he looked at you straight-on, because people believed that you wouldn't lie to them when you did that. Sabo laughed at them, and lied and lied and lied, and Ace supposes he was stupid, to have believed himself to be an exception.

Bluejam was right in the end. That's perhaps the most infuriating thing to come out of this.

"You didn't answer me," sighs Sabo, exasperated. "What're you doing here?"

"I died."

Sabo scoffs. "Come on, Firefist, I recognized you. You clearly didn't die, the Marines would have a field day. Getting to one of Whitebeard's commanders, and without starting a war? They'd never let that go."

Ace stares. "Well, yeah," he settles on saying, incredulously.

The Marines did in fact not let it go. That's an accurate rendition of what happened, sure. "There was a war," he eventually says. "Shouldn't you know that? There was a war."

"No there wasn't," protests Sabo. "Even we would know."

"There was a war," he repeats, and Sabo looks at him, eyebrows furrowed, and says, doubt dripping from his voice, "Okay, sure. If you say so. I- you know what? This is none of my business. I don't care about this. Whitebeard can invade Goa and burn it to ashes for all I care, let him have his fun."

And then he turns around and starts to walk away.

"Wai- where are you going?" Calls Ace after him.

Sabo doesn't turn around as he answers, "To a fountain. Wasn't supposed to, but some fucker punched me in the nose for no reason, and I need to clean up."

"You know why," hisses Ace, and Sabo, deadpan, retorts, "Actually, I really, really don't."

Ace catches up to him. Sabo raises an eyebrow at him. "Really? You're following me? I mean, I don't know if you're supposed to infiltrate the city, but you're not exactly inconspicuous. Nobles aren't the smartest bunch, but even they are going to notice the shirtless tattooed man walking their streets."

"No they won't, because they won't be able to see me."

And if they do, what's going to happen? They'll kill him? Good luck with that.

"That's not your fruit," just says Sabo. "Suit yourself. You could at least apologize for punching me."

"You could not be an asshole," suggests Ace.

Sabo sighs.

They walk on.

oOo

Ace isn't exactly sure why he's following Sabo, actually.

He supposes he could go back to Dadan. He guesses- but at least Sabo can see him. Nobody else can, he doesn't think.

There's a part of his mind that's also whispering- what if they don't care that he's dead? What if he goes back and they're celebrating? What if-

He follows Sabo to a busier street, where his once-brother ducks his head and hides his bloodstains, periodically glancing at Ace.

At the third person that Ace has to sidestep because he hasn't tested if people can walk through him and doesn't particularly wants to, Sabo stops dead in the middle of the street.

"Uh," he says.

"Uh," he repeats. "They really can't see you."

Ace raises an eyebrow. It's not every day he gets to be smug at Sabo, and it's a lot more satisfying when Sabo is an asshole.

"You're really a ghost?"

Ace gestures broadly at the ten people looking straight through him, and at Sabo apparently having a conversation with empty air.

Sabo swears under his breath. Ace laughs at him. Sabo glares at him. It feels like old times, except it isn't.

Ace's anger his a steady fire, but his fear of silence is a more constant companion. It could make him a hypocrite, to stay around a brother that threw to the fire all they were, but Ace supposes he can understand why Sabo would reject him.

Sabo sighs and walks into an alley. Ace follows him, if only to mock him.

"So you died."

"That's how ghosts work."

"But- but you _didn't_. We would have known, unless it was recent, or it was kept secret for some reason."

"Check the newspaper, if you want to be sure. I mean, I have it on good authority that I did die, but if you don't believe me," Ace shrugs.

Sabo frowns at him. "I don't have a newspaper," he says, and walks off. Ace follows him. Sabo glares at him.

"You look like you're glaring at nothing," comments Ace. Sabo tries to trip him. Ace dodges. For someone that can't see the ghost, it must all look very strange, especially when Ace trips Sabo back and he doesn't manage to avoid it, and faceplants right in the middle of the street.

"Fucker," he hisses between his teeth. His clothes are all dirty now, his face still bloodstained, and still he looks nothing like the boy Ace had once trusted. It's sobering, and Ace steps away and closes himself off. It must be obvious, but Sabo doesn't point it out, just walks on.

Ace follows still, to a deserted fountain. It looks neglected, in that way pristine things are. Not one bit damaged, though, just too empty; nothing in here is allowed to be weathered, Ace supposes. Either the illusion of perfection, or nothing.

Sabo sits on the ledge with practiced movements, reaches to scrub at his face and wipes the blood off. He sighs, looking at the dirtied white of his shirt, and doesn't even attempt to wipe off the dirt.

And then he rests his head in his hands, and breathes, in a pattern. Ace frowns.

"What's going on?"

Sabo straightens. "Wha- you're still _here_?"

"Where else would I go?"

"I don't know- not here!"

"Why not?"

Sabo scowls at him. "Leave me alone."

Ace crosses his arms. "Why do you look so tired?" He asks instead of doing as ordered. Sabo closes off even more, if possible.

"Seas, you're annoying," he retorts, which Ace can't help but notice isn't an answer. "Don't you have anyone else to try your lies on?"

"I said I wasn't lying."

"Yeah, that was a shit lie."

"I'm not- I'm not the liar, here! You are! You just- never left! Stayed in your precious city! Never even warned us!"

Sabo stares at him. "I don't know you," he repeats for what must be the fourth time, at least, but hurts just as bad as the first. "I don't know you! We've never talked, I've never even seen you! I don't owe you shit!"

" _We grew up together_ ," whispers Ace. For once, instead of dismissing him, Sabo stops in his tracks.

Says:

"No. No, we really didn't."

And as much as Sabo feels like a stranger, Ace can still recognize the truth in his words.

oOo

"I'm not an amnesiac!" Shrieks Sabo softly, walking towards whatever it is he's walking towards. "I would be aware of a ten-year gap in my memory!"

He glances around. "And stop talking to me, people are starting to whisper!"

Ace hums distractedly. "So if it isn't a lie, and it isn't a fruit, and you haven't been blackmailed, and you haven't been brainwashed, and you're not an amnesiac-" he lists off, and Sabo groans, but ducks into yet another deserted alley between two way-too-huge mansions.

"Have you considered," he spits out exasperatedly, "that it's _you_ who's weird here?"

Uh.

"Uh," says Ace. "How so?"

"Not my problem, I don't know you, _stop harassing me_ ," hisses Sabo before resuming walking. Ace keeps up. Sabo glares at him. It's become a bit of a routine during the past ten minutes.

"Is it the ghost thing," asks Ace straight on. The ghost thing is weird to him, to be fair, but he's found not lingering on it is the best course of action. Ace has always been resourceful, had to be to survive, really, and right now figuring out what the hell is going on is higher priority than whatever he's feeling.

Sabo sighs. To an outsider, Ace guesses it looks like Sabo is perpetually annoyed for no reason. "It's not that we never met and I imagined it all," decides Ace. He has a tattoo to prove the contrary, not that the tattoo makes much sense now that Sabo is apparently alive.

Sabo visibly restrains from commenting, instead veers off suddenly, enters another high building, and stalks off to some ostentatious room. "I hate you," he hisses at Ace, and Ace, right on his heels, replies cheerily, "Plenty people do!"

Sabo ignores him and crosses the room.

There's a newspaper thrown across the wooden, golden, ugly-looking desk. Ace reaches towards it, and freezes at the title.

_Emperor's Apprentice Strawhat Luffy Crosses Onto New World!_

"What," he manages to get out. "Emperor's apprentice?"

People aren't supposed to know about Shanks and Luffy. He doesn't tell people, he's Luffy, it's not like he would brag, and Luffy absolutely isn't strong enough to take all the people that are going to come after him if that gets out, nevermind the _Marines_ -

"Yeah," confirms Sabo, leaning over to see what he's looking at. "He sailed with Red Hair when he was young, didn't you know?"

"He what." Asks Ace. "No he didn't."

Sabo frowns at him. "Yeah he did," he argues. "Heard he's been at sea since he was 10, at least."

And that- that right there can't be right, because Ace has distinct memories of ten-year-old Luffy waking him up in the middle of the night, and for that matter, of eleven, twelve, and fourteen-years-old Luffy doing the exact same thing right up until Ace left Dawn Island.

"What the fuck," says Ace, feeling a very unpleasant sense of déjà-vu. "Are you _lying_?"

"We've established I'm not," states Sabo, tone flat. "Why would I lie about Strawhat anyway?"

"Why not?"

Sabo rolls his eyes at him. "If it'll get you to leave me alone, sure, I'm lying," he ends up settling on.

"So you're _not_ lying."

"Oh for the love of- make up your mind!"

"No, but you don't understand," stresses Ace. "I grew up with him."

Sabo levels him with an unimpressed look. "You sure grew up with a lot of people."

Ace scowls at him. "I'm not _l_ _ying_ , asshole."

"Wonderful! I don't _care_. Leave me alone. I have work to do."

"So you really don't know me?"

Sabo ignores him to sit at the ridiculous desk. Ace feels distantly like the ground has disappeared under his feet, again. "But, but- but we met in Grey Terminal. When we were young. We both wanted to be pira-"

Sabo puts his pen down. Says, deceptively calm for the way Ace can read anger in the line of his shoulders, "I never wanted to be something as stupid as a pirate. I've never been that naive."

Ace sets his jaw. "What do you mean," he retorts, more a threat than a question.

"I mean that dreaming to be a pirate is a stupid thing for a kid to do. As if it'd make you happier- as if they aren't all selfish and cruel- a pirate burned Grey Terminal, you know."

Ace freezes.

There's fire in his memory, and words he hasn't ever been able to forget written shakily on a letter. "No," he says. "No, he didn't."

Sabo scoffs. "And how would you know?"

"He didn't. He- I was in there."

Sabo falters, and then blocks himself off all over again. "No you weren't," he protests, disdain coloring his words. "You never set foot on that island."

"Bluejam, right? And it happened just before the Celestial Dragons came to visit, and your parents tracked you down, and-" Babbles Ace.

"That never happened," interrupts Sabo, looking pale for some reason. "That- that never happened."

Ace blinks at him. "But it _did_ ," he pleads, and Sabo, looking through him, says "No." He shakes his head. "I never left the city- I never escaped- _I never escaped_. And Grey Terminal-" He bites his lip. "You should get out. You should get out, you should go away, leave me alone, leave me _alone_ -"

Ace frowns at him. "What-"

"You're not from here, you don't know," shrieks Sabo. "You don't- you don't _belong_ here, this is dangerous, you're dangerous, go away-"

Ace reaches out to touch him; Sabo shrinks away so violently Ace flinches in time with him, and when his once-brother raises his head again his eyes are murderous.

"Get out," he hisses. "I never want to see you again."

oOo

First order of business is figuring out where he is. First order of business is not thinking of Sabo. First order of business is _figuring out where he is_.

First order of business is stopping feeling like he's dying again.

He doesn't need to breathe, he doesn't need to blink, he doesn't need- he doesn't need- Sabo hates him, Sabo's alive, Sabo _hates him_ -

It's all hitting him at once. Hollowed ground, collapsing again; you'd thought he would have learnt his lesson.

He wanders down the streets, down the walls, jumps from roofs and doesn't break his bones solely because he doesn't have anything left to break. Breathe, breathe, he doesn't need to breathe anymore, but breathe, breathe, breathe.

The smell of smoke snaps him out of it. He stands in Grey Terminal's graveyard. Once here Luffy stood behind him; when he died Luffy stood behind him.

Seas, but he left Luffy alone. He broke his promise. And it looks like- it looks like he can't even wait him here, like the brother he left behind isn't here anymore, like this isn't the people he left behind, like-

Like he leaped worlds.

Grey Terminal gone, and Sabo's grave's disappearance, not a trace of the treehouse, Sabo's survival, Sabo's conviction that nothing had ever happened to Ace, the "Emperor's Apprentice" mention on the newspaper...

It would make sense, wouldn't it? It would make sense.

But it wouldn't, because- changing worlds? Because- as real as this seems it could be a dream, couldn't it be? It feels nonsensical and far away from him, and he _remembers dying_ with cold, cold precision, but-

But people don't just change worlds.

Don't they?

This must be a dream, or a hallucination- and if it is how does he get out, how does he- he remembers _dying_ -

He remembers dying.

He died.

It was the first thing he knew, waking up on the cliff, feet hanging in the void. He died. It was a certainty, an immutable fact, a pull on his heart and mind and veins, dragging him down, down, down. He died, the ache of it resonating in his bones; he could still feel the smoke in his lungs and the cold of the iced-over stones against his cheeks, the taste of blood on his teeth and the back of his mouth, the salt of his tears on his skin.

He died. He died, he did.

And this isn't the people he left.

It makes sense, in a way. The world wouldn't give Ace a second chance, what would he have done to deserve one? The world doesn't care about broken promises, when has it ever?

This isn't the people he left, this isn't the people who loved him. If he went to Dadan there would be nothing in her house. If he went to Pops, Pops would be alive, but Ace would already be there, _alive_ , and-

This isn't the people he left. This isn't the people who mattered. What is he doing here, then?

Around him Grey Terminal is empty. What is he doing here?

Sabo's not alive, Sabo died- and he survived here, only because he never wandered away, because he never met Ace, because Ace never got him killed by being a coward and _l_ _eaving_ him alone-

Around him Grey Terminal is dead. Sabo yelled at him to never come back, again, and Ace _l_ _istened_.

Sabo can see him.

Sabo- oh, but Sabo looks worn out, looks tired, looks faded; looks like he did talking about his parents, only of course it wasn't him. Sabo looks like Ace's brother did, when he had convinced himself Luffy and Ace were going to hate him for his family.  
Sabo looks beaten down, Ace realizes. Sabo looks defeated, and resigned, and like he's long given up on something important, even if Ace can't begin to guess what.

And if Ace is right, if this isn't his brother, if this is just who his Sabo could have grown up to be-

Well, that's just it, isn't it. It's someone his Sabo could have been; it's Sabo; it's the only person who can see him; it's the brother Ace didn't fight for once, and that he lost as a consequence. It's Sabo, doesn't matter that he didn't have the same dream, that he never met Ace as a kid, that they never chased after treasures and beat up bandits and stole and laughed together.

He's Ace's brother, or he could have been. He's someone Ace failed to save. He's the only person who can see Ace. That has to mean something, Seas; that has to mean something.

The wind howls against the wall of Goa and Ace jolts out of his thoughts with a start. He has to go back, nevermind that he shouldn't have left in the first place, that he should have known better than to trust Sabo's words when there is fear in his eyes and urgency in his voice. He has to go back.

The cold of his skin hits him, and he shivers. If he's right, he left his world behind, and the grief still lingers on his skin, but Ace refuses to open his mouth and swallow it, let it choke him. He died; he shouldn't be the one grieving. He has no right to it.

The weight of absence settles on his shoulders, pulls at him, but he refuses to let it sway him. He has a goal, that's all he's ever needed. That's all he's ever needed.

Don't forget to blink. Don't forget to breathe.

Ace takes a deep breath that doesn't mean anything anymore, and heads into Goa once more, leaving behind the ashy graveyard of Grey Terminal.

No time for ghosts to be ghosts.

**Author's Note:**

> well. welcome here.
> 
> this isn't in any way shape or form finished, and will probably update exceedingly slowly. you've been warned. it shouldn't have been posted but i crave validation and feedback and have no self-control, curse me.
> 
> title of the chapter taken from wilbur soot's song _i'm sorry boris_ , from the album _your city gave me asthma_. please go listen to all of it.
> 
> (written as part of the sake ceremony gift exchange. sarah, i promise this gets happier. love you!)


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